A one-of-a-kind Packard goes on the auction block — prototype of a super-luxury sedan.

It looks like a cross between a Soviet-era Zil limousine and, more to the point, a big old Packard. Indeed, it is a one-off, a prototype for a 21st century Packard luxury sedan, the spearhead of a project that never got completely off the ground.

More than 20 years ago, Roy Gullickson acquired the rights to the Packard name – the trademark had expired in the 1960s – and launched a project to build an all-American luxury car that would be priced at about $160,000, which, in relative terms, is not that high. (Ed. note: well, it is more than five times higher than the $31,000 average that Americans pay for a new car.)

The luxury Packard was planned as a four-door, four-seat sedan, with a 440-horsepower V12 engine. The prototype, built to those specifications, was completed in 1998, but, as this detailed piece in Hemmings point out, Gullickson “didn’t, however, have enough investment money in hand, and production never commenced.”

That 1998 prototype is coming up for sale at an RM Auction July 26 in Plymouth, Mich. Would be nice to see it go to a good home and, from time to time, taken out for exercise.